Fieldwork So Far

Today I thought I would write a post about some of the work preformed thus far on this project. Last summer during the planning phases on this project I went out a few days to do some prep work for this summer’s field season. With the help of some archaeologist friends, first Scott Strickland and Patrick McKitrick, and the second day with Scott Strickland and Jasmine Gollup, I did some survey work attempting to locate the site. We managed to place survey markers on the beach, which had not been done before. Unfortunately, one of those was later lost (removed), so I will have to reset those points. Then came the diving. Working off of old maps of the site from the mid-1990s I searched the area for the site. I could not find it, but did find a number of features such as what was likely the spring head used for fresh water by the early colonists, a number of pilings from the Broome family’s wharf, and some other odds and ends such as a 19th century leather shoe and what was maybe an iron pitch pot. All of these things though and no site.

Dave Howe and Dawn Chesaek of the Institute for Maritime History came out to give me a hand, lending a boat and their side-scan sonar in hopes to find the site. After a few hours of scanning, we finally found the site, directly where it was thought to be. After some quick dives we realized it was covered by sediment, but that is what we would like to see from a conservation stand point. The plan for this year is to go back and survey the site in so it can be more accurately mapped, and do some surface collection of artifacts that might be associated with it. Artifact collection comes with great responsibility though, in that these artifacts must be conserved. This is costly and time consuming, but without doing this the objects brought to the surface will not survive for long after. This is one of the areas we most need funding for. If you would like to help out with this, please visit our funding page at www.gofundme.com/g0g2k and give any amount you would like!